cuckoo. Sometimes the last days of May bring him, but oftener it
is June before I hear his note. The cuckoo is the true recluse
among our birds. I doubt if there is any joy in his soul.
"Rain-crow," he is called in some parts of the country. His call
is supposed to bode rain. Why do other birds, the robin for
instance, often make war upon the cuckoo, chasing it from the
vicinity of their nests? There seems to be something about the
cuckoo that makes its position among the birds rather anomalous.
Is it at times a parasitical bird, dropping its eggs into other
birds' nests? Or is there some suggestion of the hawk about our
species as well as about the European? I do not know. I only know
that it seems to be regarded with a suspicious eye by other
birds, and that it wanders about at night in a way that no
respectable bird should. The birds that come in March, as the
bluebird, the robin, the song sparrow, the starling, build in
April; the April birds, such as the brown thrasher, the barn
swallow, the chewink, the water-thrush, the oven-bird, the
chippy, the high-hole, the meadowlark, build in May, while the
May birds, the kingbird, the wood thrush, the oriole, the orchard
starling, and the warblers, build in June. The April nests are
exposed to the most dangers: the storms, the crows, the
squirrels, are all liable to cut them off. The midsummer nests,
like that of the goldfinch and the waxwing, or cedar-bird, are
the safest of all.
In March the door of the seasons first stands ajar a little; in
April it is opened much wider; in May the windows go up also; and
in June the walls are fairly taken down and the genial currents
have free play everywhere. The event of March in the country is
the first good sap day, when the maples thrill with the kindling
warmth; the event of April is the new furrow and the first
seeding;--how ruddy and warm the soil looks just opened to the
sun!--the event of May is the week of orchard bloom; with what
sweet, pensive gladness one walks beneath the pink-white masses,
while long, long thoughts descend upon him! See the impetuous
orioles chase one another amid the branches, shaking down the
fragrant snow. Here the rose-breasted grosbeak is in the blooming
cherry tree, snipping off the blossoms with that heavy beak of
his--a spot of crimson and black half hidden in masses of white
petals. This orchard bloom travels like a wave. In March it is in
the Carolinas; by the middle of April its crest has reached the
Potomac; a week or ten days later it is in New Jersey; then in
May it sweeps through New York and New England; and early in June
it is breaking upon the orchards in Canada. Finally, the event of
June is the fields ruddy with clover and milk-white with daisies.
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:
The "oe" ligature is represented as [oe].
Title page: Changed typo "Cambridg" to "Cambridge."
Table of Contents/Chapter VIII: Retained punctuation error in
chapter title.
Page 18: Added missing period to sentence: "The bear was fussing
... to burying it."
Page 30: Changed typo "sudddenly" to "suddenly."
Pages 31, 79, 95: Retained inconsistent spellings of
highhole/high-hole.
Pages 32 & 58: Retained inconsistent spellings of
treetops/tree-tops.
Page 38: Changed single quote to double quote in sentence: "Here,
Jim, you do this ... thing through".
Chapter XII: Changed typo "IIX" to "XII."